From: alexhormozi
The speaker shares insights on how to build a brand based on 40 months of experience, growing various platforms and selling millions of books [00:00:03]. This growth demonstrates that it is possible to build a brand without resorting to “babes, stunts, or kittens” [01:16:15]. The approach focuses on providing genuine value rather than fleeting entertainment [01:30:00].
The Journey and Initial Strategy
Over 40 months, the speaker’s YouTube channel grew from zero to 2.23 million subscribers, Instagram from 7,000 to 2.5 million followers, LinkedIn from zero to 324,000 followers, and TikTok from zero to 856,000 followers [00:00:03]. The podcast downloads increased from 3,000 to 25 million, and email subscribers from zero to 700,000 [00:00:38]. This resulted in two billion impressions and 7.8 million new subscribers, with a million copies of the speaker’s book sold [00:00:44].
Initially, the “fancy plan” had three steps:
- Make as much good stuff as possible [01:56:00].
- Post it everywhere [01:59:00].
- Learn as much as possible [02:02:00].
After investing $4 million in team, equipment, vendors, studios, and software, along with a thousand hours on camera and creating 35,000 pieces of content, six key changes were identified that significantly contributed to growth and revenue [02:06:00].
Six Key Changes for Brand Building
The observed changes that effectively grew the brand were:
1. Edutainment to Education
Content can be categorized into three buckets:
- Entertainment: The sole purpose is to get people to watch [03:39:00].
- Education: The goal is to get someone to change their behavior or learn something new [03:55:00].
- Edutainment: Aims to both teach and entertain simultaneously [04:20:00].
The speaker shifted entirely to education for three reasons:
- All views are not created equal: Entertainment content attracts people who want more entertainment, while educational content attracts those seeking more education [07:07:00]. Entertainment viewers typically do not convert into book buyers, email subscribers, or business partners at an appreciable rate [07:23:00].
- Personal preference: The speaker genuinely enjoys creating educational content [07:47:00].
- Audience preference: The ideal audience (business owners and business-interested individuals) also prefers educational content [08:05:00]. Comments favoring entertaining content often came from people who were not the target audience [08:48:00].
2. For Us to For You
This involves tailoring content specifically for the target audience (business owners) rather than creating content based on what the creators enjoyed or what attracted broad, non-converting audiences [09:24:00]. Tactical changes include:
- Different Packaging (Vague to Clear): Thumbnails and headlines transitioned from being vague and curiosity-driven to clear and descriptive, directly stating the content’s topic [10:51:00].
- Different Introductions (Confirming to Proof): Instead of merely confirming the title, introductions now establish credibility and provide proof of expertise. This is summarized by the “Proof, Promise, Plan” framework [15:25:00]:
- Proof: Prove knowledge and give a reason to trust the speaker [16:25:00].
- Promise: Clearly state what the viewer will gain or learn [16:31:00].
- Plan: Set expectations for how the content will deliver on the promise [16:35:00].
- Different “Meat” (Be Real/Vlog to List Steps & Stories): The focus shifted from “razzle” (effects, high production) to emphasizing language and clear messaging [17:53:00].# Building a Brand Without Gimmicks or Sensationalism
The speaker shares insights on how to build a brand based on 40 months of experience, growing various platforms and selling millions of books [00:00:03]. This growth demonstrates that it is possible to build a brand without resorting to “babes, stunts, or kittens” [01:16:15]. The approach focuses on providing genuine value rather than fleeting entertainment [01:30:00].
The Journey and Initial Strategy
Over 40 months, the speaker’s YouTube channel grew from zero to 2.23 million subscribers, Instagram from 7,000 to 2.5 million followers, LinkedIn from zero to 324,000 followers, and TikTok from zero to 856,000 followers [00:00:03]. The podcast downloads increased from 3,000 to 25 million, and email subscribers from zero to 700,000 [00:00:38]. This resulted in two billion impressions and 7.8 million new subscribers, with a million copies of the speaker’s book sold [00:00:44].
Initially, the “fancy plan” had three steps:
- Make as much good stuff as possible [01:56:00].
- Post it everywhere [01:59:00].
- Learn as much as possible [02:02:00].
After investing $4 million in team, equipment, vendors, studios, and software, along with a thousand hours on camera and creating 35,000 pieces of content, six key changes were identified that significantly contributed to growth and revenue [02:06:00].
Six Key Changes for Brand Building
The observed changes that effectively grew the brand were:
1. Edutainment to Education
Content can be categorized into three buckets:
- Entertainment: The sole purpose is to get people to watch [03:39:00].
- Education: The goal is to get someone to change their behavior or learn something new [03:55:00].
- Edutainment: Aims to both teach and entertain simultaneously [04:20:00].
The speaker shifted entirely to education for three reasons:
- All views are not created equal: Entertainment content attracts people who want more entertainment, while educational content attracts those seeking more education [07:07:00]. Entertainment viewers typically do not convert into book buyers, email subscribers, or business partners at an appreciable rate [07:23:00].
- Personal preference: The speaker genuinely enjoys creating educational content [07:47:00].
- Audience preference: The ideal audience (business owners and business-interested individuals) also prefers educational content [08:05:00]. Comments favoring entertaining content often came from people who were not the target audience [08:48:00].
2. For Us to For You
This involves tailoring content specifically for the target audience (business owners) rather than creating content based on what the creators enjoyed or what attracted broad, non-converting audiences [09:24:00]. Tactical changes include:
- Different Packaging (Vague to Clear): Thumbnails and headlines transitioned from being vague and curiosity-driven to clear and descriptive, directly stating the content’s topic [10:51:00].
- Different Introductions (Confirming to Proof): Instead of merely confirming the title, introductions now establish credibility and provide proof of expertise. This is summarized by the “Proof, Promise, Plan” framework [15:25:00]:
- Proof: Prove knowledge and give a reason to trust the speaker [16:25:00].
- Promise: Clearly state what the viewer will gain or learn [16:31:00].
- Plan: Set expectations for how the content will deliver on the promise [16:35:00].
- Different “Meat” (Be Real/Vlog to List Steps & Stories): The focus shifted from “razzle” (effects, high production) to emphasizing language and clear messaging [17:53:00]. High-performing content focused on emphasizing the message over production value [19:06:00].
- Different Visuals (Overproduction to Effective Production): Production should enhance education, not distract from it [20:11:00]. This means moving from distracting visual effects to visualizing data and making content easier to understand [21:12:00].
- Different Pre-work (Post-production to Pre-search): Emphasizing rigorous research and planning before recording drastically reduces post-production work and improves content quality and output [21:37:00]. The philosophy is “an ounce of pre-work is worth a pound of post” [22:54:00].
3. Wide to Narrow
The strategy narrowed the content focus from broad topics like relationships, college, food, and lifestyle to exclusively business-related topics such as business models, business leverage, and selling [23:41:00]. Different audiences seek different content; for example, those interested in college typically aren’t business owners [24:33:00]. This ensures the content resonates with the desired audience.
4. Views to Revenue
Initially, views were the primary metric [25:22:00]. However, it was discovered that ad revenue (specifically Revenue Per Mille, or RPMs) was a more effective metric [26:56:00]. Ad revenue considers both the number of views and the revenue generated per view, acting as a “paired metric” that indicates audience quality [28:03:00]. Higher RPMs correlated directly with more book sales, opt-ins, and business applications, even when views were lower [29:07:00]. This showed that generating a higher quantity of low-quality views did not translate to building a valuable business [29:35:00].
5. Shorts to Longs
The belief that short-form content (“shorts”) viewers convert to long-form content (“longs”) viewers, who then become customers, was challenged by data [30:48:00]. The findings indicated that shorts viewers prefer shorts, and long viewers prefer longs [31:13:00]. While there might be cross-platform discovery (e.g., finding someone on TikTok and watching their YouTube longs), long-form content consistently drove more conversions (book sales, opt-ins, applications) [31:52:00]. Therefore, the strategy shifted to emphasizing more long-form content, particularly business-related topics [32:08:00].
6. Assume More to Assume Nothing
The mistake of assuming the audience already knew the speaker or understood inside jokes was corrected [32:53:00]. To bring new people into the audience, content should be made as if speaking to a stranger [33:33:00]. Tactical implementations include:
- Clearer Headlines: Titles like “The Alex Hormozi Guide to Haters” were rephrased to include context, e.g., “Business Influencer Crushes Haters and Shows How You Can Too” [34:45:00].
- Introduce Yourself Every Time: Explicitly stating who the speaker is and why they should be listened to at the beginning of content [34:40:00].
- Fully Explain References: Avoiding inside jokes that alienate new viewers [35:00:00].
- Act Like You’re Talking to Strangers: Mentally frame content for those who have no prior knowledge of the speaker [35:20:00].
This approach ensures positive associations by consistently delivering value after a clear introduction, allowing new audiences to engage while reminding existing fans of the brand’s core value [39:05:00].
Entrepreneurial Philosophy
While various content types and strategies can “work” to some degree, the key for entrepreneurs is to identify the most efficient use of limited resources (time, money, energy) to maximize the number of “right people” who discover their content [41:57:00].
The speaker’s philosophy is encapsulated in three points:
- Anything works better than nothing: For those not consistently creating content, simply starting is the first step [42:30:00].
- Some things work better than others: Continuously analyze data to find strategies that yield better results [42:42:00].
- Nothing works forever: Strategies must evolve as trends and audience needs change [42:52:00].
The role of the entrepreneur is to start, identify what works best, maximize that approach until it slows down, and then adapt to the next effective strategy [42:54:00]. This iterative process is crucial for building brand value over time and achieving sustainable growth.
The speaker offers free resources including a school for starting a business and free courses based on best-selling books at acquisition.com/training for those further along in their business journey [43:30:00]. The core message is to take action and apply the lessons learned to create tangible results [45:10:00].